Your Amazon Echo offers lots of cool features, from music to games to smart home controls. One handy feature is the ability for Prime members to buy Amazon products by telling Alexa what you want. Yep, if you're running low on bottled water or you want the latest Spider-Man film on DVD, just tell Alexa to order the item.

You can buy items from Amazon by talking to Alexa through any Echo device. You can purchase physical products as well as digital items, such as music and eBooks, but whatever you order must be available through Amazon Prime. Prime subscribers who live in a city where Prime Now is offered can also order food, groceries, and other items with a free two-hour delivery time.

But purchasing products via voice can be dangerous in the wrong hands, especially if you have kids at home who may go wild buying stuff on their own. To prevent this, you can place restrictions on the ability to order items via voice by adding a confirmation code. Here's how.

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Voice Purchasing

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Select a Code

At the “Voice Purchasing” screen, make sure the option to “Purchase by voice” is turned on. To secure your voice purchasing so that only certain people can use it, type a four-digit code in the “Require confirmation code” field. Alexa will ask for that code each time you try to order something by voice. Then click on “Save Changes.”

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Change Payment Method

If you want to hear the latest deals from Amazon, say: “Alexa, what are your deals?” Alexa describes each of the deals, asking if you want to buy it. If you wish to order more than one item, say: “Alexa, add [name of product] to my shopping cart.” Continue adding items this way until you’ve added the products you want to your shopping cart.

From there, you’ll have to complete the checkout using the Amazon app or website. Finally, you can find out when your order is due to arrive by saying: “Alexa, where’s my stuff?”

About the Author

Surviving a long and varied career in publishing, advertising, and IT, Lance Whitney now wears a few different technology hats. By day, he's a journalist, software trainer, and sometime Web developer. By night, he's asleep. These days, he writes news stories, columns, and reviews for CNET and other technology sites and publications. He's written tw... See Full Bio

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